Official blog of Gurcharan Das. He is the author of India Grows at Night: A Liberal Case for a Strong State (Penguin 2012);The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma (2009),India Unbound (2000),a novel,A Fine Family (1990),a book of essays The Elephant Paradigm (2002) & an anthology of plays,Three plays (2003). He writes a regular column for the Times of India and 5 Indian language papers and occasional pieces for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Time magazine.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Aam Aadmi is not the reforming party India needs, Financial Times,January 26, 2014

The leadership is trapped in the ideas of the old left, writes Gurcharan
Das

For the past six weeks Indians have been mesmerised by the stunning success of
the Aam Aadmi party, which has propelled its 45-year-old activist leader,
Arvind Kejriwal, to chief minister of Delhi. The AAP – or Common Man party –is only a
year old but its popularity is challenging the supremacy of India’s two main
political parties, the left-leaning Congress and the Hindu nationalist
Bharatiya Janata party.

Yet despite its many commendable
features, the AAP is not the party needed to revive investment and growth and
unlock India’s potential. Mr Kejriwal’s gentle, charming rhetoric seems to hide
illiberal instincts. His party, furthermore, could prevent the formation of a
stable government in this year’s national elections if it diverts enough votes
from Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata party, the leading contender.

The AAP has rapidly given many Indians
a wonderful sense of nationhood. Its transparent fundraising contrasts with the
murky electoral financing of other parties. Its strident rhetoric has forced
parliament to enact anti-corruption legislation that had been
languishing for years. Its politicians’ frugality has embarrassed those of
other parties who live in sprawling bungalows with gun-toting security
brigades.

A young, aspiring middle class, sick of
corruption, is largely driving the AAP phenomenon. Filled with hope and
ambition, it wants jobs, opportunities and a better life for its children. But
the party’s leadership is trapped in the ideas of the old left and could take
India back to its socialist past, the pre-1991 days when it was a perpetual
underachiever. Since the leadership is out of sync with the aspirations of its
followers, the party may yet hit a wall and run out of steam. It is a fate that
has been met by many populist movements before.

The AAP failed its first economics test this
month when it disallowed foreign investment in Delhi supermarkets. It did not
realise that its supporters would prefer to work in modern supermarkets rather
than dingy localkirana stores. It forgot that, the world over, the
“common man” shops in supermarkets where prices are lower because large
retailers shun intermediaries to buy their produce directly from farmers,
passing on the savings to consumers.

Instead of fighting supermarkets, the
AAP should have scrapped a law that forces farmers to sell through

official “agricultural produce
marketing committees” – in effect, wholesaler cartels. This would benefit
consumers, curbing rises in fruit and vegetable prices. It would also, for
example, allow supermarkets to buy directly from farmers, keep the produce
fresh throughout the supply chain and save food from rotting in the field.

The man in charge of running one of
India’s leading cities has the opportunity to transform it into an innovative
services hub, and to lift his supporters to the affluence enjoyed in the Asian
tiger economies. But Mr Kejriwal does not realise that, since the arrival of
the metro over a decade ago, Delhi has changed from an old bureaucratic town of
constipated civil servants to become a lively commercial city.

His first move was to give all
households 20,000 litres of free water a month – a populist ploy that will not
help the poorest 30 per cent of Delhi citizens who are without running water.
This middle-class subsidy will lead to meter-tampering and destroy the finances
of the publicly owned water authority, leaving scant funds for maintenance, or
for laying new pipes in poor neighbourhoods.

What makes Mr Kejriwal unique is his
obsession with corruption. But to tackle it he will have to go beyond his
favourite idea, the Lokpal, an independent anti-corruption agency with the
power to expose wrongdoing by officials. At a minimum, he must eliminate
opportunities for official malfeasance by reforming the bureaucracy and the
judiciary. He has shown little inclination for this hard work.

Indian voters, unfortunately, do not
have a choice when it comes to economic issues. Every party is left of centre;
hence, reforms take place by stealth.

The space at the right of centre
remains empty. More than the AAP, India needs a liberal party that openly
trusts markets and focuses on economic and institutional reform. But this
situation might soon change. Mr Modi is openly right of centre. Even though his
own party is confused on economic issues, his state of Gujarat has registered
double-digit economic growth for more than a decade through his ability to
attract private investment. He may not be the liberal reformer India needs but
he is decisive, business friendly and gets things done.

No party seems capable of winning a
majority in the forthcoming elections, and voters are reconciled to another
coalition. The AAP’s role might well be that of a spoiler, which will mean
instability in a country where decision making has been paralysed for the past
five years under Congress party rule.

The writer is the author of ‘India
Grows at Night: A Liberal Case for a Strong State’

4 comments:

Congress should not come because that will legitimize their all corruption and India will be doomed for sure.

BJP is party which propagates communal propaganda and in corruption they are not very different from congress , just they have not had enough chances.

AAP is shutting down FDI in retail which has lobbied to dilute the retail norms (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/government-to-dilute-fdi-retail-norms/article4974885.ece), if they will not procure even 30% from domestic market , how can anyone say that it will benefit Indian Farmers. Just to have a cashier job in big super giant stores, I don't think India should allow FDI in retail.

P.S :- I am fan of your book Indian Unbound and currently reading Indian Grows at night & The difficulty of being good.

Pandit Umesh Sharma is a Member of Aam Aadmi Party and He is standing in election of MP at West Delhi. He is a social worker in his area and do more worke for neede people.Pandit Umesh Sharma Aam Aadmi Party

I am an avid reader of your books and upon reading this piece, I just wanted to share my thoughts...I have precisely the same opinion.

India has enjoyed stability and prosperity thanks to educated leadership between 2004-14. Education indeed makes a person - both intellectually and ethically - as has been proven post WWII by Germany, a country that chooses to hand over its reins only to highly educated (doctorate level) leaders in politics and business.

Today, India stands at a very worrisome crossroads - ethics and inward-economic policies...or market economy minus ethics (i.e. - leaders who have been known to spark communal riots at a terrible cost). You are right - perhaps a short coalition might be the answer.

In your books, you say that the reforms will be complete only in the formation of a strong and liberal state. As your reader and follower, I wish to add that ethics and character is an important brick in this foundation of a strong and liberal state.

We need leaders who have vision, dynamism, common sense, and most of all, compassion and the urge for dharma.

About Me

Gurcharan Das has recently published a new book, India Grows at Night: A liberal case for a strong state (Penguin 2012). He is also general editor for a 15 volume series, The Story of Indian Business (Penguin) of which three volumes have already appeared.
He is the author of The Difficulty of Being Good: On the subtle art of dharma (Penguin 2009) which interrogates the epic, Mahabharata, in order to answer the question, ‘why be good?’ His international bestseller, India Unbound, is a narrative account of India from Independence to the global information age, and has been published in 17 languages and filmed by BBC. He writes regular column for several news papers and periodic guest columns for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and Newsweek. Gurcharan Das graduated with honors from Harvard University in Philosophy, Politics and Sanskrit. He later attended Harvard Business School. He was CEO of Procter & Gamble India and later Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide (Strategic Planning). In 1995, he took early retirement to become a full time writer.
Visit http://gurcharandas.org for his complete work and profile.